I had not intended to write again about our winter landscape, but I can’t help it.
Monday morning was oddly colorless out the windows. The snow had been blowing sideways and stuck in thick patches to the shingled walls, leaving narrow dark lines at the bottom edge of each shingle. The result made the walls into log cabin structures, made of thin straight logs much like Lincoln Logs.
Tree branches are coated white, except for those that have fallen and stick out from snow piles in the yard. The cedars are thickly covered with mounds of snow, not unlike those poorly-made holiday ornaments in November’s budget catalogs.
The sky is the same white as the ground. The lights in the house flicker a little and all the clocks are asking to be reset – just days away from the resumption of daylight savings time.
Summer hours return offiicially on March 8. It means the clocks in our car and truck will be correct once again.
Then around lunch time Monday, we lost power…and internet, phone, water and heat. Thank the thermal gods for the wood stove, where we huddled the rest of the day and ate baked beans and sausages for supper, not knowing what time it was. A few more hours of huddling, we went to bed early, with lots of covers. I slept very well, snug as a cat.
Tuesday the sun was out, the wind had gone, but the air was still below freezing. There are new animal tracks on the snow; the former ones having disappeared on Monday. The heavily-laden pines and spruce trees all bow toward the west. Snow on top of the table on the deck – my winter measuring device – looks about three feet deep. The adirondack chairs out there are bloated with heaps of snow.
Bigger branches have fallen and stuck here and there. There may be a tree or two down; I can’t tell from here.
The plow has come and gone. It’s just, again, the walk from house to car, about 18 or 22 miles now, I think. But the power is back on, and the rest, and I can run the dishwasher and even wash my face.
Happy birthday to Kate Athearn on Friday, Feb. 27. And best wishes to Patrick Ruel, Suzie Goldstein aned Sydney Gerhard on Saturday, Feb. 28. Sam Alley would have a birthday on Feb. 29, if there were such a date, but this year he can choose his own.
Congratulations and happy wedding anniversary to Kenny and Janet Belain on Friday, Feb. 18.